Questions With Possible Answers
by sing-oldsongs
Summary: Brian is not expecting this. He thought they would just sit on the floor and stare into space, cohabitating the same general area as people who are almost friends but have never specifically declared themselves as such often do.  BrianxRickie.


_**Summary**_ _Brian is not expecting this. He thought they would just sit on the floor and stare into space, cohabitating the same general area as people who are almost friends but have never specifically declared themselves as such often do._

_**Spoilers**__: not really, but I tend to think this takes place after the end of the series, so it might be helpful to have seen the entire thing_

_**Disclaimer**__: I do not own My So-Called Life, any of its characters, including and especially Brian and Rickie, or any of its settings._

**x**

"So, like, you know I'm gay, right?"

Brian is not expecting this. He thought, before Rickie spoke, that they would just sit on the floor and stare into space, cohabitating the same general area as people who are almost friends but have never specifically declared themselves as such often do.

And then Rickie spoke and the silence was shattered.

"Well…uh…y-yeah, I figured," Brian answers. His voice is stuttery, and he wonders if stuttery is a word and if he can use it if it's not.

"And you don't, like, mind?" Rickie is looking away from him as he speaks, straight ahead like maybe he doesn't care about the answer to his question and is just making conversation, but his occasional glances at Brian say something different. They are very quick glances, and Brian has to wonder how Rickie has time to see anything at all, in that short flicker of eyes over and back.

When Brian was younger, he used to lie on his bed and stare at the ceiling and ponder the speed of light. Like, how could anything really be _that_ fast? He tried turning his head as fast as he could, back and forth, to see if he could break it. He never did. The world remained its colorful self. Not Technicolor, not true color, not color like you see when you finally wake up out of your boring life—

Brian has never seen that color before. But he is a scientist, more than a dreamer. You see things in color because of the reflection of light. This is proven. This he can count on.

He realizes several long moments have passed since Rickie spoke, and he still hasn't answered.

"It's okay if you don't—" Rickie is saying.

"No, no, I don't mind. I don't…care." His words sound wrong and he wishes they didn't. He wonders if Rickie is asking for acceptance, and if he is, why.

"Rickie, can I ask you something?"

A short pause, and an answer that is border-hesitant: "Yeah."

"Are we friends?"

Brian is looking at Rickie, at his profile, which is defined and brings to mind words like 'ancient,' 'sophisticated,' and even 'beautiful.' Rickie isn't answering and seconds are passing.

Finally, he says, "Yeah. I guess we are. I never thought about it."

"Neither did I," Brian admits. Then they sit in silence again.

Questions are floating around Brian's brain. Questions and no answers. Questions with possible answers, hidden where he doesn't know to look. The air is still and unmoving around them and it seems almost, oddly, unfair to break it, to ruin it with words. He does, anyway; he says, "Rickie?" and waits for it to bounce off the other wall and hit him, right to the chest.

"Yeah?" Rickie answers.

"How did you know? I…I mean, how _do_ you know?"

Brian's eyebrows are leaning in, slightly, together, without his realizing it. Rickie gives him a questioning look, short and almost like his glances, before, then turns forward again. "How do I know we're friends?" he asks.

"No. How do you know you're gay?"

It is not a question Brian likes to ask. It makes his face slide from pale to red and his ears burn, and he doesn't think he could look at Rickie if he tried.

"Oh." The silence is stretching again. Rickie is moving slightly, uneasy, and his voice is on the edge of faltering and shifting when he says, "I just knew. I guess."

"It wasn't like…one definitive moment…or…or something like that?" Brian is trying to understand and it doesn't matter that his words are falling apart as soon as he says them. Even before he says them.

"Not one moment," Rickie answers. He sounds understanding and comforting and Brian is glad, at least, for that. "It's just…something I've always known. I mean, I guess."

"Do you…think it's like that for everyone?"

Their words are full of stutters and pauses, and Brian wishes this was something with a definite answer, a yes or no, something he could solve with figures or mice or contraptions to measure…anything.

"I guess it's different for everybody," Rickie says.

"I guess."

Two weeks later, Brian kisses Rickie behind the school building, in the shadow of it where actions and words are shaded and cool, like the undersides of rocks in summer. He has examined the problem from all angles and thought of all possible solutions, left them outlined neatly in his mind, to refer to when he needs to remind himself, but no matter how many times he looks the answer remains the same. The answer is always Rickie.

Rickie doesn't seem annoyed or angry or even questioning when Brian pulls away. He doesn't smile, either. He just stares. Brian is scared, until Rickie kisses back and then he figures, all points being equally considered, that maybe this…figuring things out…thing…isn't quite so bad after all.

**x**

end


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